Tuesday, April 17, 2012

FAF



The elevator had just given a hearty shudder when the young man next to me said "I've seen this thing nearly kill two people," and, miming shoulder-butting and pulling apart the elevator doors, he continued "they were like 'Aaargh!" "Eeuw," said one of the objects of his attention and, applying an emoticon horror face, she said "this elevator is, like, sooo scary!" By the time the doors opened everyone involved seemed satisfied with the interaction and went their separate ways to classrooms where, one assumes, communication between student and professor is a little more fluent than what I'd just heard.

Its interesting watching how this generation makes itself understood to its peers, for those members of it with whom I interact in the classroom don't talk to me this way. Oh, on occasion I get "’sup, professor?" which I take at face value and frequently reply "’sup, student?"- which usually brings a smile, if a wry one. In the hallways and in the elevator I sometimes have the idea that these young people have begun to act like silent-movie stars - mugging for the camera with words replaced by gestures and poses. It seems to me the more inarticulate they are the more expressive their body language - though, perhaps, now I think about it, not so much resembling silent-movie stars, more modern-day TV actors.

I wondered once if it were fashionable to be inarticulate and whilst I think that is might be so, peer pressure, or rather pack behavior plays a role. This combination of gesture, facial expression and pose is a linguistic short form to which I've become accustomed and which I observe every day. I remember one teenager I overheard in an airport recently who was irritatingly unable to put two words together without an intrusive "like" or a gesture or a pose to fill in the missing words. I, like, was, like ... really, like... I mean... Her three uniformly clad and coifed companions were equally incomprehensible but it did not seem to matter for they all were having a great time. While I, like, in my, like, ungenerous way, wanted to .... well, I won't, like, go there.

"Is that a Brooks Brothers’ blazer?" asked a student last night before class began and on hearing it was, said he "that's, like, fratty as fuck!" Not so much thrown as intrigued, I asked "what as what?" and his female companion, perhaps in an effort to defuse what she thought might become a difficult moment, informed me in very friendly way that FAF was a compliment. Grateful as I was, and remain, for learning something new and for being made to laugh out loud, I thanked them both.

Despite the criticism it gets for its inability to put down a cellphone; its seemingly universal desire to filter life through earphones; its casual relations with deadlines; its supposed narcissism and public inarticulacy, I must say I have found my experience with Generation Me to be unalloyed pleasure. What I for my part find hard to articulate is how much I will miss my interaction with those bouncing-off-the-wall-with-enthusiasm, bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed, uniformly entertaining and, in my experience, hard-working students when I stop teaching at the end of next week.

LOL

38 comments:

  1. Strange to say, but I have the image of Diane Weiss in my mind, straight out of Bullets over Broadway. Instead of intoning "Don't speak!" she is uttering "Don't Stop!" Of course, that is not in the cards, is it? But I wish it were. Your kids were damn lucky to have you.

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    1. Thank you, Daniel. I have mixed feelings, as you might imagine but I'm glad I had the opportunity to work with the much-derided Generation Me. A good note on which to finish, I feel.

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  2. Shoot me! I didn't spell Dianne Wiest correctly! Not FAF, was it?

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    1. Daniel, I had not noticed the misspelling but it definitely was FAF.

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  3. You're stopping teaching at the end of next week??? Yikes. A new chapter begins. Exciting and terrifying, I imagine.

    English is a living language, after all. We are quite happy not to speak the Middle Ages version of it, and to me one of its absolute joys is its evolution. So yes, while some words are changing and the vocab does seem to be shrinking, it no doubt will not stay this way for very long.

    And for the record, I now know what faf means. Thank you.

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    1. Glamour Drops, thank you. You're right - exciting and terrifying all at once. Dread and pleasant anticipation!

      I love the way the language changes but manages to stay the same - thank fuck, as they say.

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  4. Retirement next week? No way! You lie. WTF!

    All the best Blue in your days ahead (which I selfishly hope is the book inside you that needs to be written).

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    1. home before dark, thank you. Quite, WTF! Nonetheless, it is true - next week I give up teaching. But, I'm making plans and you mention one of them. Again, thank you.

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  5. Like you, "like" in the midst of sentences is extremely annoying. And I have to bang on again about the awful habit of texting during so-called conversation, (with someone else. Me). I was dining with a newly introduced person the other night and he proceeded to have a txt conversation with some new flight of fancy for the first 20 or so minutes of dinner. I was extremely tempted to rip the offending device out of his hands and deposit in the nearby water feature. And he's 46.

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  6. columnist, thank you. I have had to threaten a group of 80-something students who lit up the darkened lecture hall with their phone screens during a lecture using a DVD with a Grade reduction if they did not turn off their phones. In restaurants whole tables, whether or two or six, can be seen either to be on the phone, listening to messages or texting - as if there's is no-one else at the table. And, you're right, its not just the young.

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    1. The iPhone Zombies who stream past my house on their way to the nearby university are a source of continuing amusement and despair. We're obviously raising an entire generation unable to live without the constant attention of their machines.

      (My nieces and nephews are incensed when I insist they put away their iPhones at the dinner table. But I think it's appallingly rude of them, and I wonder what went wrong in their upbringing to make them feel otherwise. Sigh.)

      P.S. On a brighter note, I had not been previously exposed to FAF. Thanks for that -- I think.

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    2. The Ancient, thank you. Only this evening I noticed that five of the six young women at a nearby table were busy with their phones. The one not using her phone sat twirling her glass, not speaking, and looking bored stiff. How strange to gather and then ignore each other!

      As to FAF, you're welcome - I think.

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    3. After my earlier outburst, I too was wandering through a Food Court adjacent to a super market I sometimes use. Without exception each table I passed had a least one or two (i)Phones on it, either being used, or being used to show they had one. Frequently tables had all parties using their phones and not conversing. It's totally bizarre behaviour. I thought maybe it was just here in Thailand, but clearly it's a universal pastime, (mostly amongst the young), but not exclusively as I pointed out with my recent dinner guest. The fact that he was a very new acquaintance prevented me from really saying what I felt, (ironically because I did not want to be rude). If there is a next time I less be less meek in the matter.

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    4. Columnist, thank you. "... or being used to show they had one." The perfect observation! It is the same when one is in an elevator - most people, depending on age, whip out a phone the second they enter the car. Embarrassment, perhaps, or display?

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    5. Blue & Columnist --

      The Sunday NYT has something just for you!

      http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/the-flight-from-conversation.html?ref=opinion

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    6. The Ancient, thank you for the link to the NYT. It's an interesting and perceptive essay in how not to communicate whilst not communicating. The "new skill" of holding maintaining eye contact with someone while you text someone else is both fascinating and disconcerting! I'm not sure I'd like to be the one whose gaze is being held.

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  7. It's also not just the young who are vulgar. I think the Jerry Springer viewers of the universe have seized control of the asylum, and it is evident everywhere from TV, which I no longer watch with the exception of PBS, to walking around in the drugstore or supermarket. The young are just following suit and being young. I'm sure we had our own slang expressions, but I'm too ancient to remember what they were. The difference is we wouldn't have dared express it in front of an elder or a professor, and chewing gum in public was considered a punishable offense. It still is IMO.

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    1. Anonymous, thank you. I wish chewing gum anywhere and not just in public was considered a punishable offense - it is something I cannot bear to see or hear. I just do not understand why anyone would want to chew for hours on end.

      I could not imagine, here in the south, not being addressed as "sir" by any young man - respect for elders being instilled at a young age, but there is little of the deference that you and I might have felt towards our professors. I'm not sure it's a bad thing.

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  8. Blue, FAF is new to me as well. Call me a prude but not only would I never use "that" word in front of a professor, I would not even utter it while conversing with you!

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    1. The Peak of Chic, thank you. I think it was simply a male-to-male moment and I took it as such. I'm not sure how either you or I would cope with the shock if you uttered "that" word! It is unthinkable!

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  9. Well Blue, there are so many opportunities open to you when you retire from teaching - social commentary and analysis being one. I absolutely loved this post. What I can't forgive is the interrogative tone at the end of a sentence but I have always loved the vibrant, evolving vernacular. Fratty as Fuck. I'm not going to abbreviate it.
    Good luck with the transition darling.

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    1. Rose, thank you. For better or worse, I have got so used to the interrogative tone in modern speech that I quite enjoy it. I cannot imitate it but the Celt is disturbingly good at it. I retain my native dying fall.

      Upwards and onwards, as they say!

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  10. How unfortunate you will no longer be teaching, as I'm sure you are an excellent teacher to this 'me' generation. It seems they have taught you as well, FAF amongst other things I am sure! I have no doubt you will be sorely missed.
    However, selfishly, I am excited to hear you will be working on a book!!

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    1. ArchitectDesign, thank you. You're right, Generation Me has taught me a great deal, both about them and about me. A new day dawns!

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  11. Only false note here is the final phrase. You won't stop.

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    1. Laurent, thank you. You're right - I'm just movin' on!

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  12. The L-Word has always driven me up the wall, and now it can be
    found in the presumably un-edited quotes within the Talk of the
    Town pieces in the New Yorker. No matter who is being quoted and
    whatever their contribution to civilisation might be, I find myself
    questioning the maturity of anyone who is, like, talking in that inane manner. When the New Yorker magazine has decided to go with the
    trend, then I'm, like, outta there.

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    1. Toby Worthington, thank you. The worst for me as far as "like" is concerned is hearing an adult using it in the same abjectly faltering way as a teenager - reminds me of the tragic forty-something A&F clones who should know better. Don't get me started!

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  13. Blue, that was my whole point and I forgot to mention it! I mean, when
    60 year olds begin to affect these colloquialisms. Just pathetic.

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    1. Toby Worthington, I could not agree more!

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  14. What a delightful, generous, and -- dare I say it -- sweet post. I work with many young people in their mid twenties, only a few years older than your pupils, and am pleased to say that their inarticulateness, while not erased, is much improved.

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  15. Reggie Darling, thank you. As I have sometimes thought, the inarticulacy is a mere youthful and fashionable indiscretion.

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  16. Blue,

    If you think that's bad you should hear the ones from LA. I have a niece who lives out there whose tone of voice is a mix between a drawl and..well I don't know what else. Nobody in the family can understand a word she says, especially my 87 year old mother. Communicating with her by phone is like having you teeth pulled. Luckily her mother understands her and translates for the rest of us.

    Being occasionally on Twitter I have been exposed to LMAO and even LMFAO but FAF??? Thanks!

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  17. FAF? You've taught me something new...fotflmaof!

    I think you will always teach, inform and amuse your friends and readers. You can't retire from your gentle humor and unerring taste. All the best, Blue!

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    1. smilla4blogs, thank you. Kind words for which I am grateful and moved!

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  18. LOL, the young keep us young. But, then you are young at heart, and retirement will not change that. Come see us in Maine.

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    1. Janet, thank you! I may well take you up on that. My first breakfast on American soil, and I'm talking about the time of the Bicentennial, was lobster with drawn butter at a seaside shack at Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Never forgotten it!

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